


Salt and Sea

by c4t_lady



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:07:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26331625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c4t_lady/pseuds/c4t_lady
Summary: Amid the Hogwarts grounds in the late 1970s, students undergo magical training while war brews beyond the school's gates. Inside the castle, Peter Pettigrew begins to disappear into himself, Sirius Black battles with the reality of a future conflicting with his family's past, James Potter struggles with feelings he can't articulate, and Remus Lupin fights a love he can't imagine ever revealing. Through the torments of adolescence, these four friends must decide what is worth standing for and what may be better left unsaid.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 8





	Salt and Sea

His hands were so soft on me in my dreams. Always in the same places, trailing fingers that left burning embers in their wake. It took everything in me not to let moans escape, not to take his fingers and move them to my mouth. His eyes were warm this close, not nearly as dark as when they were boring into me from across the hall. I could read them here. I could see all of the depth behind that wall he wore so proudly.

“Rem,” he whispered to me, and my entire body rippled with desire for his mouth against me.

“Rem,” he said it again, louder this time, and I stifled a groan of longing.

“Remus!”

My eyes snapped open to bright day. Sunlight was pouring through the window of the cool stone room where I lay, damp with sweat and completely tangled in my sheets.

“If you don’t hurry up and get dressed, you’re going to miss breakfast.” Sirius’s voice was always husky in the mornings. Ever since he’d come back from the summer, we’d been giving him shit about his voice cracks, but in the last week or so they’d dissipated, to be replaced with a kind of smoker’s edge that made James lose his head laughing.

He was out of the room before I could say anything in response. I glanced around for other stragglers, but Peter was gone too. Only James remained, bent low over a book full of scribbled margins, muttering to himself, his hair on end like always.

“What’ve you got there, Prongs?” I said, standing and pulling on my robes hastily.

He didn’t seem to hear me, still bent with his nose against the page, eyes flying back and forth quickly. I frowned, rounding my bed and placing a hand on his shoulder.

“James?” He jumped, tossing the book to the floor with a yelp.

“Geez, Moony, couldn’t give me a warning or something?” he said, face flushing as he scrambled to collect the book from the floor and shove it into his bag. I laughed a little, scooping my own bag from the floor.

“I called your name, but you were totally into whatever that…what is it anyway?”

James frowned, “Nothing.” It wasn’t like him to keep things from me, but I didn’t want to prod.

“Alright, alright, whatever you say. You coming down? We can’t be late for lessons again. McGonagall will have our asses. Last time she threatened to de-Prefect me.”

James snorted, “And risk you falling out of line with the rest of us? As if.”

We left through the Fat Lady; the common room was nearly empty, as it was nearing eight.

“Snagged you some toast.” Sirius bumped his shoulder against mine, handing me a piece of toast with jam before tossing one over my head to James.

“Thanks, Sirius,” James said, catching the bread in his fist, “Never would’ve gotten through Transfiguration on an empty stomach. Not with those fucking Vanishing Spells she’s still got us working on.”

James and Peter started a heated debate about whether we’d be moving to vanishing mice today, and Sirius took the opportunity to bump my shoulder again.

“Bad dreams so far from the full moon?”

I choked on my bite of toast, “Huh?” I managed to get out once I’d swallowed.

Sirius grinned. “You were mumbling in your sleep all night. Sounded like a wild dream.” There was something probing in his gaze that made the back of my neck warm. I busied myself with another bite of toast before answering.

“Can’t remember. Must’ve had too much Butterbeer last night.” Sirius always knew when I was trying to shrug him off, and I could feel another question blooming, so I forced my way up toward James.

“You seen Lily around?” I asked as we approached the classroom. “She’s been gone for nearly a week now; you think it’s something serious?”

James immediately took on a cool, indifferent tone, but I could see the pink patches beneath his even, brown skin. “I heard one of the girls talking about her mum being sick. She must’ve gone home for a bit to be with her.”

“Is that how you managed to snag her potions book?” Sirius drawled, smirking as he took a seat in our usual clump of four desks.

“Sirius,” James hissed, casting a brooding glare his way. I thought back to the thin, curled writing I’d caught a glimpse of earlier that morning and smiled a bit to myself. James was softer than he let on.

Classes passed that morning quickly. Sirius had an infuriating knack for spells; he managed to vanish the mouse on his third try, which as far as McGonagall was concerned, was unheard of. He’d earned 30 points for Gryffindor by the end of class, but lost them quickly when McGonagall caught him trying to vanish a first year’s owl as she passed the classroom. Peter floundered through Transfiguration, but caught his stride in Charms, and it wasn’t until break that I finally got a chance to talk with James, who’d seemed distracted all morning.

“You alright?” I asked as we traipsed down the lawn to the tree that overlooked the lake. Sirius had run up ahead to offer the squid a croissant from breakfast, and Peter was trailing him like an overexcited child.  
“Just thinking,” he said, but something in his voice was off.

“Am I going to have to wring this one out of you mate? What’s got you all twisted?”

“Oh, don’t act like you haven’t got a clue. You knew I liked her well before Sirius did.” He plopped down in the dirt, face twisted in an agitated grimace.

“Alright, alright I won’t play dumb. But damn, Prongs, now you’re stealing from her?”

“She left it in the common room, I was going to return it, but then she went home so I just…”

“Kept it safe for her?”

“Exactly! I’m keeping it safe. And should it fall open on occasion? Who am I not to happen to glance down at the right moment and catch a couple of lines.”

I stifled a laugh, figuring now wasn’t the time or place.

“She’s really brilliant, you know,” he said defensively.

“Moreso than Sirius?”

“She’s got better grades.”

“Everyone has better grades than him, James. He only goes to half of his classes. You know what I mean.”

“Look, I don’t know. All I know is that she’s invented her own potions in this thing. Her own potions. Slughorn doesn’t have us doing that til N.E.W.T year, look.”

He tugged the book from his bag and flipped to the back section where, sure enough, scribbled in the footnotes and around the text, Lily Evans had concocted her own potion.

“What’s it do?”

“Haven’t a clue. Looks like she hasn’t named it yet, but I bet it’s remarkable.”

“You aren’t going to tell her you read it, are you?”

“Fuck, no. I’m leaving it in the common room tonight. She’s supposed to be back sometime this weekend, I figure she’ll find it then.”

“You don’t want to heroically return it to her?”

“As if. She hardly gives me the time of day unless it’s to call me out for picking on that sun-deprived rat of a friend she’s got.”

I didn’t say anything to this. Sirius and James lived to tear apart Severus Snape, and I could never bear to stand in their way, but it didn’t mean I had to take part in the torment and abuse.

“James, Rem, check it out!” Sirius was standing knee-deep in the lake, a sparkling blue stone held in his hand. He had a wide grin across his face, and the air around me felt lighter for a moment. He sloshed back toward us, Peter standing anxiously on the shoreline and dancing from foot to foot as he watched.

“Wow, Sirius, I thought the squid was going to pull you under for sure, it was so close to you I thought-“

Sirius shoved past him and squatted down beside James and me. I could smell the salted lake on him as he bent close to us, rolling the stone again and again between his fingers.

“Cool, right? It reminds me of sea glass, although it can’t be considering this is a lake…”

“Didn’t Flitwick say there’s mermaids down there?” I asked, leaning closer in to look at the stone. It was warped slightly in the center and had a drop of amber coloring inside its cracked façade.

“Yeah, but who knows if that’s really true,” James chimed in, poking at the stone with his finger. “It’s pretty neat, regardless.”

I looked at Sirius’s hand, wrapped tight around the stone, his thumb rubbing it subconsciously. He had thin, long fingers, and the skin there was pale, almost entirely untouched by the sun. He didn’t tan at all, no matter how many afternoons we spent out there. James would turn dark, deep brown, Peter burnt easier than a match, and I’d head inside with dozens of new freckles, but not Sirius. He stayed as smooth and fair as untouched snow, not a blemish or a burn in sight.

*****

“Evans is back, did you see?” James hissed at me as we entered the Great Hall several days later. I hadn’t noticed, exhausted as I was. I’d been plagued by fitful sleep for weeks now, waking more tired than when I had dozed off, and almost always nearly missing breakfast.

I let my eyes glaze over the entirety of the Hall, landing suddenly on the back of a scarlet head. Lily sat, perched at the end of the Slytherin table next to the shrunken figure of Severus Snape.

“Wish she’d find better company,” James grumbled. For all the shit that he and Sirius talked about Severus, there was always the faintest hint of jealousy in James’s voice whenever he discussed Lily and her companion.

“I’m sure she’ll come running to you eventually,” I said with a sigh, rolling my eyes as a couple of fourth years waved at James excitedly.

“Rem, c’mere,” Sirius said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me down next to him. I dropped my bag between my legs and leaned forward on the table.

“Look, I’m gonna skeev off Potions today, take a little hike into the Forbidden Forest to smoke some we- hey why do you look like that?”

“Like what?” I asked, running my fingers through my hair self-consciously.

“You look exhausted, what’s wrong?”

“Just haven’t been sleeping my soundest.”

“Bad dreams?”

I thought back to my dream from the night before: A hot breath, a hand against my leg, a voice in my ear that whispered softly.

“Um, something like that.”

He glanced around before pulling something out of his pocket, grinning. It was a blunt.

“I’ll go to Potions and we can smoke this tonight instead. It’ll have you sleeping like a baby.”

“Sure, Sirius, I’ll smoke with you tonight.”

“It’s a date – oh, hey, we should get going. I want to get to Defense Against the Dark Arts before Snivellus. He always tries to take the good seats.”

He stood up, nudging James to follow him. I trailed after, but my head was still full of Sirius’s reply: It’s a date.


End file.
